> >What do you think it
> >is _cosmologically_, and what role do you think it plays in HQing, as
> >distinct from the Godplane? You seemed to want to say all questing
> >happens in the GP anyway,
>
> Only those Myths that concern purely deitific interraction, as per
> Greg's own description - the highest level of HQ.
Well, if you mean literally _at the level_ of the gods, as opposed to simply, of the same myth as are told involving deities, then I agree with you...
(Returning to the (C)OED, I'm shocked to see it doesn't have "deitific" in it -- why the heck not!?)
> >But what about some
> >sort of account of the "process" of "being Vinga" at 2W, vs at
> >10W5? They can't be both "being Vinga" in exactly the same sense
> >or to the same extent.
>
> It's the idea both can even be called 'being Vinga' that upsets me.
OK, maybe I'm not really understanding what it is you're proposing (or want) after all... So I'll continue telling you what it is I think you're gonna get. ;-) No, there's not both "being Vinga" in anything like the same sense -- not even a highly presumtuous HQer would describe what they're doing as that. But all worship, all theistic relationship (in the Heortling manner), even, is based on _emulation_, and there are clearly degrees of emulation of, and identification with, the deity going on here. The simplest sort is simply being yourself, but asking yourself, "What would Vinga do?" -- identification via virtues, as it were. The identification characteristic of the hero involves taking on the magical and incidental attributes of the emulated entity -- heroforming, in one mode. This necessarily "detaches" your from your mundane being to some extent, and "locates" you in the hero plane, to some degree. At the ultimate extreme, you're _entirely_ identified with the deity, which makes you indistinguishable from it. (Hence you have no mundane existence at all, and the Compromise sets in...)
> >For example, Greg's comments about most quests _not_ being on the God
> >Plane, contra your assumption.
>
> He also said some ARE. We've got trapped in one single example here.
Sure, but the implication was clear that it was a "high-powered minority" that involved this, which didn't seem to be the situation you were interested in. The original point I wanted to tease out was that a given place's "mythic location" (e.g. Orlanth's hall) doesn't necessarily determine the "planar where" of the quest. (In fact most such locations are co-located on all the heroplanes it'd make sense for quests involving them to happen on, as well as the god plane, as a rule.)
My interpretation of Greg's comments if that you're only questing on the GP per se if you're facing actually god-like resistances. As in if you meet this guy, and he has Blow Hard 10W10... then I reckon you must be there.
> If you're emulating a hero, not Vinga, it's a different myth. If
> you're performing the same myth as the hero did, I do not see how you
> get it any easier than she did. Same myth, same difficulties. Seems
> reasonable. If you get the same myth for a lower resistance, why not a
> complete scale? And if there's a complete scale, why involve the hero,
> why not just Vinga, with variable difficulties?
Since the "person" emulating Vinga was trying to well, _emulate_ Vinga, the difference is necessarily small enough that it's recognisably the same myth. Think of the usual example of the LBQ and the menagerie of possible critters that turn up during the Westfaring...
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